A few words about Ms Liberty
by JWBullfrog
Summary: Everybody looks up to heroes... Don't they?


A few observations about Miss Liberty. By someone who knew her when...

Aloha.

For those of you who don't know me, my name is Cassadega Delgado. Street performer, magician, juggler, and all around nice gal. You might have seen me in Atlas Park, performing my act. No? Oh well, I suppose it's inevitable that some people miss me since I'm usually not too far from that most glamorous of Atlas Park attractions, Ms. Liberty.

Or, Libby, as I know her.

I guess being the Daughter and Grand-Daughter of some of the city's most notable heroes would make her a person of interest; particularly for the newest members of the Superhuman community. But I find it hard to take her seriously because I went to high school with her.

That's right. She did go to high school. She was, once, a normal person. Well, as normal as she ever was. Back then she was just Megan Duncan. I guess that's an understatement because she was never JUST anybody. She was, in effect, the Princess and heir apparent of Paragon City. She knew it, and she made sure that every one else knew it too.

It was hard to take her seriously since the words Megan Duncan and serious rarely ever came into close proximity of each other. She was Head cheerleader, Prom Queen, Homecoming Queen, Miss Junior Paragon for 3 of her 4 years of High School (I hear it's still being disputed in court) while I, and most of the school were... completely uninterested.

Oh, don't get me wrong, she had friends. Well, I suppose they were friends, it always looked to me more like a wake of well dressed Vultures waiting to feed on her latest kill, but she _was_ always surrounded by the beautiful people of the school. Not anyone more beautiful than herself, you understand, but a group hand-picked to accentuate her own beauty. Kind of like shoes and a matching handbag...

I guess she had to surround herself with friends. I mean, she couldn't have had much of a social life otherwise. For most of us, dating was, at best, awkward at worst, embarrassing. I can imagine that dating for her was no picnic. Actually, I can imagine how it was like for any guy brave enough to ask her out.

Imagine, for a moment, the typical high school dating scenario. You've gone to the girl's house to pick her up and, as usual, she's not quite ready so, according to tradition, you find yourself spending a few minutes talking to her family, most likely, her father.

Now, remember who we're talking about and who her family is.

That's right, while other fathers might be casually cleaning a shotgun or three, her grandfather just has to be trimming his fingernails. I can guess that she was never brough back late from a date. In fact, she was probably home a half an hour early.

And lets not forget the OTHER side of the family. Although Uncle Stefan never attended any of the family days that I was aware of, would you really want to take the chance that he might get upset. Or, worse yet, that he might approve?

Yup, home an hour early with sworn statements from a dozen witnesses that NOTHING happened.

To be fair, she wasn't a total snob. She was unfailingly polite to all the little people around her and she always went out of her way let us know how lucky we were to have spoken with her. Or, at least to have had her speak to us. I'm not sure that she even understands the concept of a two-way conversation to this day. A conversation with her is a bit like having a conversation with a parrot. Sure, you can do it, but you're really not going to get anywhere and it'll probably just give you a headache.

She was a perfect student. She never talked back to the teachers (actually, she never said anything at all in class.) She never had disciplinary problems. There were a lot of incidents that 'never happened' but I can't tell you much about those since they ... well you get the point.

I can't tell you much about her grades, but she always had high marks in her classes. Four of her flock: Mark Anderson, Mark Harrison, Mark Cooper...you'd think there was something in the water about sixteen years earlier. All day long I'd hear her in the halls 'Hi Mark, Hi Mark, Hi Mark..." Skwak! Libby want a cracker? Pitiful.

That kind of thing continued for four years finally culminating in her Coronation. Or, as the rest of us liked to call it, Graduation Day. Honestly, I'd never seen so much media coverage since the Olympics. Fortunately, thanks to the miracle of alphabetization, I had gotten my diploma before she had her chance to flounce upon the stage. Trust me folks, nobody flounced quite like Libby. I felt kind of sorry for the people who had to follow her. It was only supposed to have been a two-hour ceremony.

It wasn't.

The only students that were supposed to have made speeches were the usual folks; the Valedictorian, the Class President, ect. So, when she started into her completely impromptu and unplanned speech (that I heard she paid a pretty penny to have written for her), the subsonic groan could be heard across the room. Who was going to tell her she couldn't speak? It was why the TV cameras were there in the first place.

It was a wonderful speech full of ringing phrases and praise for her classmates, of hopes and dreams for the future, of glowing promise for those of us that were going to have successful, ordinary lives while she was off saving the world...

I dozed off halfway through. I hope she paid her ghost writer well since I'm certain that they could not have been happy about the way she mutilated their work. I got to hear the very end since somebody was nice enough to nudge me awake, but, looking back on things, I think I would have liked the extra few minutes sleep.

Well, you pretty much know how things went from there. She became Ms. Liberty, icon of young heroes and darling of the Internet, savior of Paragon city (according to her online Bio), and example to citizens everywhere...

Me, I know better. To me she's always going to be Libby, the princess on her own self-made pedestal. And, as long as she stands there, I'll be nearby, keeping her honest.

Aloha, Libby. Try stopping by and visiting us in reality once in a while.


End file.
